Founded in 1978, the Minnesota Zoo exists to connect people, animals, and the natural world.

• More than 1.1 million guests visit the Zoo annually. Since 2005, attendance has increased by 17 percent.
• More than 2,700 animals (449 species) reside at the Zoo.
• More than 875 individuals volunteered at the Zoo in 2008, contributing more than 86,000 hours.
• More than 36,000 households (162,000 individuals) have Zoo memberships, the highest number ever.
• The Zoo’s operating budget is $19.1 million, with more than $12 million coming from earned and contributed income.
• In the past year, the Minnesota Zoo Foundation raised $7.7 million to support the Zoo. The Cargill Foundation and the Medtronic Foundation pledged $1 million each, among the largest corporate gifts ever received by the Zoo.
• The Minnesota Zoo has a statewide annual economic impact of more than $95 million.

Cutting-edge exhibits provide exciting experiences with animals and their habitats—introducing guests to species from around the globe in naturalistic and educational settings.

• In 2001, the Wells Fargo Family Farm—funded entirely with private dollars—won the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) Best Exhibit Award.
• The Medtronic Minnesota Trail, revitalized in 2007, received AZA’s 2008 Award for "Significant Achievement" in exhibits.
• In 2008, Russia’s Grizzly Coast—a $24 million state-of-the-art exhibit featuring grizzly bears, sea otters, wild boars, and Amur leopards—opened to the public. The exhibit also features a state-of-the-art Education Event Center—the Zoo’s first “green” building.

These new additions led the Zoo to be recognized by the “Meet Minneapolis” Convention and Tourism Bureau as the Twin City’s top tourism destination in 2008.

The Minnesota Zoo’s education programs engage audiences at the Zoo, throughout the region, and around world.

• The Zoo is the largest environmental learning center in the state. In 2008, more than 325,000 people participated in Zoo Education Programs including over 1,100 schools from around the state.

• In 2008, nearly 100,000 students and teachers participated in school field trips to the Zoo.
• Throughout the State of Minnesota, more than 48,000 individuals participated in the Zoomobile outreach program in 2008.

• The Zoo’s popular summer “Zoo Camp” program experienced record attendance in 2008 when more than 3,500 children, ages 2-18, participated.
• In 2007, the Zoo developed “WolfQuest,” a free, online interactive video game inviting players to assume the role of a wolf living in Yellowstone National Park, thanks to a $500,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). To date, more than 600,000 individuals from 237 countries have learned about wolf ecology from playing the game.
• Since its inception in 1998, the Minnesota Zoo Safari Program has provided free field trips to more than 74,000 students in nine school districts, including Minneapolis, St. Paul, Apple Valley-Eagan-Rosemount, Rochester, Northfield, Red Wing, Austin, and Faribault.

Conservation is a core value of the Minnesota Zoo.

• The Zoo works locally, nationally, and internationally—with a variety of partners—on species recovery and reintroduction projects: bluebird recovery in Minnesota, trumpeter swan restoration in the Midwest, Mexican wolf recovery/reintroduction in the Southwest, and Asian wild horse recovery in Mongolia, to name just a few.

• The Zoo participates in 22 Species Survival Plan (SSP) programs, designed to help ensure the survival of selected threatened wildlife species through breeding and management of the captive population in U.S. zoos.

• The Zoo is a world leader in tiger conservation and recently obtained permission to work with two national nature reserves in China to develop a long-term plan to restore habitat, prey species, and eventually, South China tigers to the wild.
• Zoo staff participate in conservation projects around the world. Since 2002, 99 individual awards have been given to 73 different projects in 32 countries. More than $190,000 in private funds have supported this program.

Amazing animal encounters make the Minnesota Zoo one of the top zoos in the country.

• Since its inception in 1998, the Minnesota Zoo Safari Program has provided free field trips to more than 74,000 students in nine school districts, including Minneapolis, St. Paul, Apple Valley-Eagan-Rosemount, Rochester, Northfield, Red Wing, Austin, and Faribault.

• In 2008, the Zoo’s long standing and popular Zoomobile outreach program delivered 585 programs in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin reaching more than 48,000 people.
• Through the “Museum Adventure Pass” program, 32,132 library users received free admission to the Zoo in 2008.
• The Zoo’s website, mnzoo.org, received more than 1.5 million Web hits during the past year.
• In 2008, more than 28,000 low-income individuals received free admission to the Zoo through passes distributed by Community Action Agencies in 87 counties.